Cerbère

Commune

A view of the little harbor, with a beach, in central Cerbère

Coat of arms

Cerbère

Location within Occitanie region

Cerbère

Coordinates: 42°26′39″N 3°09′56″E / 42.4442°N 3.1656°ECoordinates: 42°26′39″N 3°09′56″E / 42.4442°N 3.1656°E

Country

Communauté de communes des Albères et de la Côte Vermeille

Government

• Mayor (2014–2020)

Jean-Claude Portella

Area¹

8.18 km² (3.16 sq mi)

Population (2013)²

1,378

• Density

170/km² (440/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

INSEE/Postal code

66048 /66290

Elevation

0–643 m (0–2,110 ft)

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

²Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Cerbère (in Catalan: Cervera de la Marenda) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. Its inhabitants are called Cerbériens.

The village is best known for the border railway station, Gare de Cerbère, on the French side of the border on the railway line between Perpignan and Barcelona. Since France and Spain use different rail gauges, the border stations of Cerbère and Portbou are quite busy with various transfer or gauge adjustment operations.

The last commune on the Côte Vermeille (vermilion coast) before Spain, Cerbère is neighboured by the communes of Banyuls-sur-Mer and Portbou (Spain).

Cerbère's nearness to Spain played a significant role in what has become known as "The Retreat" or "La Retirada". In the early months of 1939, many of the near 500,000 Republican refugees fleeing Franco's Spain flooded over the border at Col-des-Balistras/Belitres Pass into Cerbère and other border villages. A monument featuring an exposition of photos taken by photographer Manuel Moros of those refugees now marks the crest of Belitres Pass, where Portbou in Spain and Cerbère in France can be seen from the same spot.

Cerbère is located in the canton of La Côte Vermeille and in the arrondissement of Céret.

The derivation of the name has certainly nothing to do with the dog Cerberus (Cerbère in French), guardian of Hell in Greek mythology, even if Cape Cerbère could appear as a guard post at the entry to Spain. In any case, numerous other localities have the same name, especially in Spain, and their geographic position would not suggest such a derivation. An alternative suggestion is a place frequented by stags (French: cerfs), an equally unlikely hypothesis. Given the antiquity of the name, it must be assumed to be a pre-Latin name, and to come from the pre-Indo-European root kar or ker (rock) followed by the Ibero-Basque root -erri (place). The name of Cerbère described, then, a rocky place, which perfectly describes the site, as well as other localities with similar names.

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Wikipedia